The movie opens with Alex Hopper (Kitsch), a drunk, unemployed loser. He's dragged into the U.S. Navy by his straitlaced brother Stone (Skarsgård), who hopes it will give him some direction in life. Five years later, Alex is a junior officer, with plans to ask the Admiral for his daughter's hand in marriage. Unfortunately, the Admiral (Neeson) dislikes Alex both as an officer and a gentleman, and he intends to have Alex discharged by the end of the next voyage.

Said voyage is a huge, multinational war game, off of the coast of Hawaii. Before the exercises have a chance to get underway, however, the fleet is interrupted by a bunch of alien objects crashing into the ocean. The objects reveal themselves to be a squadron of alien war machines. Their intentions aren't clear, but whatever they're planning, the aliens aren't here to play games.

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Stone Hopper, when compared to Alex; not only does he have his shit squared away, his destroyer has won the Battle E numerous times.

Alex Hopper made himself a CIC Officer in five years, and improbably brilliant (and lucky) tactical officer in general. However, he is a pure distilled jackass until hammered multiple times with failures (including one that almost cost his entire career, and another that cost many Japanese sailors their lives).

Adaptation Expansion: Of Battleship, as noted. There is a preexisting spin-off game about an alien invasion, but those aliens are completely different.

Advertising by Association: The film was proudly declared as coming "From Hasbro, the company that brought you Transformers", in spite of neither film being actually made by the same studio (note:Hasbro's film division at the time just developed the concepts for other studios. Also, they didn't create the original Battleship game, they just bought out the owners).

All There in the Manual: The novelization clears up a lot about the aliens. For example, they're called the "Regents", and the reason they don't just smash the humans outright is that they're testing them.

Apathetic Citizens: There's a strange and quite visible force field over Hawaii, and all contact with the outside world is down, but when the aliens hit infrastructure and military bases, the traffic appears to be ordinary rush hour clutter, not panicked attempted evacuation, there's a Little League baseball game going on, and the military base seems to be in routine operation, not any kind of alert.

Armor Is Useless: Averted. The armor of one of the aliens does a very good job of soaking up assault rifle and pistol bullets with no sign of damage to him.

Played straight with the Missouri, oddly enough. The deck armor and turret armor don't do any good against the pegs.

None of the American ships shown in the movie was involved in the RIMPAC exercise in 2012. The Japanese destroyer Myoko, however, was part of the exercise that year.

Crossing over with Artistic License – Engineering, clubhauling an Iowa-class battleship is completely impossible: even if you used all four anchors, the ship is too massive and would be moving too fast for the chains to hold up.

Bringing a museum ship up to fighting capability in under a day is impossible. Even assuming that live ammo and fuel are stored onboard strains belief. In real life it took two years to recommission and Iowa-class battleship (though that did include upgrading and installing new weapons and systems). Firing the boilers alone takes the better part of day.

Awesome, but Impractical: The battleship Missouri in a modern navy. As Alex explains to a little boy taking a tour, the battleship is essentially a dinosaur fossil even compared to ships like his much smaller destroyer. Battleships were made obsolete by aircraft, missiles and advanced targeting systems — three things that had been nullified by the aliens making it more effective for direct combat than the destroyers. In fact, the buoy targeting method is a more advanced version of how battleship targeting was traditionally performed. But somehow Alex forgot, that in '80s Iowa-class battleship were upgraded with then-modern radars, missile weaponry and active defences, and were pretty useful in Desert Storm operation. Obsolete, but nothing like dinosaur fossil.

The Cavalry: Just when it seems Alex, Nagata and Co have sailed their last mission against the aliens the armed might of the Pacific Rim navies comes to the rescue in the form Australian fighter jets blowing the enemy up.

Celebrity Paradox: Winked at: the novelization opens with young Alex and Stone playing a grid based naval warfare game called "Broadsides".

Changed My Mind, Kid: A nerdy scientist decides he wants nothing to do with the fight, but then saves Mick out of nowhere by smashing an alien in the face with a metal suitcase.

Cool Ship: A lot. There's the Arleigh-Burke-class missile destroyers, their Japanese copy counterparts, the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan... but the coolest of them all is the USS Missouri. And those are just the human ships.

Combat Pragmatist: This seems to be humanity's big advantage in the film, up to and including using a five-inch cannon in a melee.

Curb-Stomp Battle: The first battle with the aliens. Due to the shield jamming their missile guidance systems they're forced to engage the alien ships with only their five-inch guns, which are piddly next to what the aliens can dish out. Both the Sampson and Myoko are destroyed very quickly one after the other, the former with all hands.

Curse Cut Short: A few times, usually with a naval gun firing. Most memorable of the lot would be this:

Don't Touch It, You Idiot!: Alex Hopper is sent with two others on a Zodiac to get a closer look at the alien structure when the fleet spots it, and one of his companions cautions him against getting closer when he finds a surface he can walk on. Naturally, he walks over and puts his hand on a wall, apparently initiating a reaction and launching him fifty-some feet backwards.

Raikes mans a Minigun on the rigid inflatable boat sent to investigate the alien craft.

The Phalanx CIWS turrets on the ships also provide Gatling action.

The General's Daughter: Well, admiral's daughter in this case. And she's caught the eye of Alex, a Lieutenant. Her father does not approve of him.

Glass Cannon: The Arleigh-Burke and Kongo-class guided missile destroyers pack a punch if they hit, but can't take a beating. Justified, in the fact that modern anti-ship weapons are so powerful that avoiding being hit (via speed or active defenses) is a far better strategy for surviving than heavy armor. The aliens just happen to be further enough up the Tech scale that they can defeat most of these defenses.

Girls with Guns: Raikes is hardly ever seen without one, and they range from a pistol to sixteen-inch naval artillery.

What the aliens are trying to do for most of the movie. After their communications vessel is destroyed after colliding with a satellite, their entire goal is to secure the Deep Space communications facility in Hawaii to send out a distress signal.

On the human side, the chief was pointing out that he has no clue how to get the Missouri back in working order, nor a crew to man her even if he did. Cue a bunch of old veterans who volunteer to be the crew of the Missouri once more.

Gunship Rescue: The Australian Hornets that land the final blow on the alien mothership.

Handicapped Badass: Mick, who still manages to kick alien ass despite having lost both legs. Pun not intended.

Infant Immortality: The Wheel of Death examines, then turns away from a kid playing baseball.

In-Name-Only: The board game is petty spare on details so this is inevitable. It does have two nods to the source; the alien canister bombs that embed themselves into ship decks before exploding much like the pegs from the board game, and a night battle where combat from the human perspective is remarkably grid based.

The "marines" are only armed with a hand spike from what we see, and their ships and ground troops can be beaten by a 1940s warship and a retired ex-boxer Colonel Badass with artificial legs, respectively.

Explained in the DVD extras. The aliens are not marines... they are scientists.

The alien ships also appear to lack guided weapons beyond those "wheels". They prefer to fight with ballistic explosive shells that spin, for some reason.

Lead the Target: The alien targeting system does this automatically, showing the Missouri and a green silhouette of her slightly ahead, based on where their computer has calculated she's going to be when the shells hit. Alex's anchor maneuver is designed to stop the ship just as the shells are launched, thereby causing them to overshoot the target, and to bring the Missouri's main guns to bear on the alien ship in an impressive broadside.

Love at First Sight: Alex first meets his future Fiancée in a bar during his drunken birthday. While he's infatuated with her, she doesn't appear that interested until he fulfills his promise to bring her a chicken burrito, going so far to steal from a store and getting arrested as a result.

Macross Missile Massacre: The Aegis Combat System allows the missile destroyers to do this... except that the aliens are jamming their radar, and most of their missiles are antiaircraft missiles. The aliens themselves enjoy using this method.

The Movie: Of the board game. Universal got the rights along with those to several other board games from Hasbro, then sat on them. Hasbro was starting to ask them to pay a penalty for doing nothing with the film rights when Peter Berg came along and offered to direct.

One scene in which the aliens do allow the characters to rescue the survivors of the ships they sunk early in the film. They also avoid harming civilians several times. However, they destroy freeways with cars on them, surely causing civilian fatalities, and kill police officers and destroy a Marine base without warning or visible chance to surrender.

There's also the alien aboard the JPJ who gives Alex a vision of the aliens' plans (this may count since the alien seems desperate), as well as the alien who lets the scientist go (they may be the same alien).

No Range Like Point-Blank Range: Although the sixteen-inch guns of the Missouri can easily engage at over twenty miles away, the battleship is practically spitting distance from the alien craft when they actually attack. Having only a small handful of shells, however, plus an undersized crew they could hardly afford to waste shots getting the range for a longer ranged engagement.

Not of This Earth: Alien debris is composed of unknown elements (and lawrencium); impressive, since our indications are that everything we haven't identified is extremely unstable. Lawrencium, number 103 on the periodic table, has a half-life of 216 minutes at its stablest known isotope, and everything above it only gets shorter-lived.

The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: The navies of several nations evidently spend an entire night just sitting there staring at the force field. The team in Washington and the mainland doesn't seem to be up to much, either; they're pretty much dropped out of the plot halfway through.

Point Defenseless: The CIWS mounts on Sampson, Myoko and John Paul Jones do their best, but in the end there's too much incoming fire to intercept.

Powder Keg Crowd: The world, once they find out about the aliens, begins rioting. This has absolutely no bearing on the main plot nor story, and is never resolved.

Power Armor: Standard-issue for the aliens, apparently coming in light and heavy varieties.

Power Walk: Performed by the U.S. Navy veterans when they come to the aid of the JPJ's survivors in getting the Missouri back into fighting shape.

Promotion to Parent: Though not stated outright, it's implied with the way Stone lectures and shouts at Alex in a way that's more paternal than fraternal, even scolding him about wasting his birthday wish on a girl.

"The Reason You Suck" Speech: After Alex gets arrested and tased in the opening scene, Stone comes in and starts yelling about how he was screwing around with his commander's daughter, which therefore messes with his job, and his life, and he's through with just letting Alex repeatedly go through with stupid stuff.

Royals Who Actually Do Something: Lt. Alex Hopper doesn't do delegating. Being a junior officer, he's sent to scout the alien spaceship; later, when the aliens board John Paul Jones, he's leading the team searching for them, even though he's by then the acting Captain. In the novelization, he even notes that he shouldn't be doing so.

Likewise, it is Captain Nagata who is required to "play Battleship", rather than one of his own weapons officers, though it's likely most of his CIC crew are dead, given the placement of the hit on Myoko.

Rule of Cool: Turning a 45,000-ton battleship with a anchor in a club-hauling maneuver? Not realistic, but definitely cool. Similarly with Alex, Lynch, Nagata, two old veterans and a small Japanese officer carrying a 1,900-pound HC shell.

Sacrificial Lion: Stone. The more responsible brother who gets Alex to start shaping up, only to die in the first few minutes of the first battle with the aliens when the Sampson is lost with all hands after previously beginning to take on water.

Save Sat: An accidental one. The aliens' communication ship collides with a random satellite orbiting Earth while traveling at interstellar speed and crashes into Hong Kong. Sure, it's bad for the Chinese, but the fact that the aliens don't have a ready means of letting their homeworld know that Earth is ripe for the taking is the only reason humanity even has a chance.

For example, Alex's attempt to get a chicken burrito from a closed store to impress Sam is a beat-for-beat reference to this memetic idiot. Except Alex can just use the emergency exit, he eventually realizes.

The Stinger: Post-credits is a scene in what looks like Scotland of a group of people trying to open a pod which fell from the sky, only to pull back when an alien hand from the inside starts to pull it open.

Stock Sound Effects: In a way — many of the sound effects from Transformers can be heard in this movie (not surprising, what with Hasbro owning both properties).

Technology Porn: The reactivation of the USS Missouri is this so, so much. Bonus points for the scenes shot being the Missouri's actual activation after a decade of inactivity. Lighting the engine, reloading the main guns, propulsion running so hard it makes the camera shake. Listen to that steam engine purr.

Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Alex and Nagata dislike each other immensely, and Nagata blames him for the loss of his ship and his men. Their cooperation is quite reluctant, but they both get better.

Telepathy: The touch of an alien's hand causes a vision of what's on its mind.

Villainous Valor: The aliens definitely have several examples of this. Despite their advanced technology, they are obviously Out-manned and Out-gunned by the rest of humanity (the Barrier they put up is for their own protection rather then to keep the heroes isolated) and they spend most of the movie trying to send out a distress signal. Then there's the Rescue mission they pull when the humans capture one of them and it's not difficult to see the desperation in the crew of the Main Gunship trying to take out the Missouri when the latter has a gun aimed at their ground team.

The War Room: The Combat Information Center on John Paul Jones, where much of the fighting and planning takes place from.

Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: The aliens avoid killing anyone who isn't a threat even if they were hostile just a moment ago. Their plan would have succeeded if they bothered to destroy the John Paul Jones during the initial engagement. A similar event occurs when the scientist is confronted by an alien scientist inside his base but is let go without harm.

You Are in Command Now: Alex finds himself in command of the USS John Paul Jones after The Captain and the Executive Officer are killed; as Tactical Action Officer, he's next in the chain of command. (It was implied that all the other officers were killed in the attack. This is why the Master Chief is advising the Lieutenant about abandoning his need for revenge and picking up survivors. This turning away from the conflict kept Jones from remaining an alien target.)

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